U.S. President Barack Obama's first meeting on Thursday with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was less remarkable for the actual talks between the two leaders than it was for the changed Washington political climate in which it took place. The...
Humanitarian Crisis Deepens in West Bank
RAMALLAH - "I heard voices, I turned around to look, and saw a group of Israeli settlers assaulting my brother Hammad," says Abdallah Wahadin, 82, a Palestinian farmer from Beit Ummar near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. "Three of them surrounded...
Will Netanyahu Give Up Settlements to Gain Support Against Iran?
JERUSALEM - The tremors of Monday's North Korean nuclear test have been felt all around the world, no more so in a country seemingly not directly affected by whether or not North Korea is a full-fledged nuclear power. In Israel, there is deep concern, an existential...
Who Will Stand Up to America and Israel?
Showdown Looming Over Israeli Settlements
JERUSALEM - A showdown over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is looming between Israel and the United States barely a week after the encounter at the White House between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What's...
Iran Hawks Push Obama on Deadline for Diplomacy
After an uneventful first meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that seemed to produce no real breakthroughs, hawks in the U.S. and Israel are seizing upon what they claim is a significant concession by Obama: his...
Did Bibi Box Obama In?
Netanyahu Adviser Moves Out of the Shadows
As might be expected of a former senior official with Israel's spy agency Mossad, Uzi Arad – the most trusted political adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister – has got used to being in the shadows as he exerts influence. But that is fast changing....
Obama Steers Toward Endless War With Islam
In just over 100 days, President Obama is on the verge of ensuring that militant Islam's war on America will be waged for decades to come and its forces will never suffer manpower or money shortages. How did he accomplish so much in some little time? He simply behaved...
Bibi and Israel at Dead End
If there are no peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians for an independent Palestinian state, war next year is inevitable. So King Abdullah II of Jordan has told the London Times: "If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict...


